


Strange Discoveries

by DualWieldingCousland (DualWieldingMama)



Series: The Other Regan [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-03-22 10:29:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3725443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DualWieldingMama/pseuds/DualWieldingCousland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Non-mages trying to figure out magical-like items; what could go wrong?  Takes place in the Hinterlands – no in-game dialog included, slight deviation from game with regards to item locations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strange Discoveries

“You should have seen her, Curly,” Varric laughed, raising his mug as he noticed Regan entering Haven’s small tavern. “Jumping around like a bloody mountain goat trying to reach something; that girl can’t keep to an actual path if you paid her.” He just shook his head as Cullen looked surprised. “And when she saw those templars going after one of our scouts, she didn’t think twice, just ran straight at them. Of course, they didn’t see her coming; I have to get her to teach me that trick.”

Regan handed the package she’d been asked to deliver to Flissa and bounded over to the pair, grinning. “Varric, you have to see what I found in the Hinterlands! It -”. She was about to say something further when she noticed Cullen’s eyes on her. Suddenly, her mind skidded to a halt. 

He couldn’t help but smile at her exuberance. Whatever she had found had her more excited than he could remember seeing her. Cullen waited for her to continue, trying not to blush when she noticed him watching.

“Well, don’t leave me in suspense, Trevelyan,” Varric laughed, shaking his head. He was still trying to come up with a good nickname for her. He knew she wasn’t overly fond of being constantly referred to as The Herald of Andraste, but nothing seemed appropriate, so far. “What did you find? And what were you doing out there without me? I’m hurt.” 

“I have no idea what it is, actually,” she laughed, shrugging. “Solas and Cassandra wouldn’t let me get close.” She leaned over to hug the dwarf, “Don’t be mad. Cassandra wanted to see what Blackwall could really do in combat, and she insisted on Solas coming with us.” She glanced at the man across the table and caught his eye again. Regan felt her stomach go in knots as she smiled nervously, biting her lower lip before returning her attention to the dwarf. “You’ll go with me to check this out, right? I can probably convince Sera to come with us to provide some extra cover fire if I need it.”

Varric nodded slowly, a thoughtful grin slowly spreading across his features. “Why don’t you bring Curly, instead?” He looked over at Cullen, rather amused to see the surprised look on the man’s face. “We could always use another blade.”

“That would probably be a good idea,” she laughed, turning that smile on Cullen. “It’s always nice when I’m not the only one running at the bad guys. Archers like Varric and Sera are lucky; they get to stay way back, out of danger.” She brushed a stray bit of hair away as she straightened up, excitedly bouncing on the balls of her feet. “You’ll come with us, Commander, won’t you? Please?”

Oh, sweet Maker; how could he possibly say no to that? There was nothing he could do to defend himself from that smile. He found himself nodding, still unable to look away. “I would be honored,” he heard himself say. “Cassandra, Blackwall and the lieutenants should be able to handle training the men while I’m gone.”

“Oh, thank you!” Regan exclaimed, clapping her hands. Cullen wasn’t quite sure how she moved so fast, but suddenly, she was next to him, kissing his cheek. “I have a couple more things to drop off, and I’ll be ready. I’ll meet you both at the main gate as soon as I’m done.” And then, she was out the door.

“I really need her to teach me that disappearing trick,” Varric laughed. “She’s something, isn’t she?” He tactfully decided not to mention the pink tint that had proceeded to color the man’s ears and cheeks the longer they’d spoken to the girl. “Shall we get our things and head toward the gates?”

“That she is,” Cullen murmured, looking toward the door Regan had run out. “I … I need to get my sword,” he finally answered, pushing away from the table. He didn’t bother trying to stop the hand that moved to touch the spot she’d kissed.

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

The journey to the Hinterlands had been fairly uneventful. The trio made use of some of Master Dennet’s mounts and a special saddle the blacksmith had designed for Varric to be able to ride comfortably, and made their way quickly along the fastest route. They passed the time chatting aimlessly about nothing in particular, until Regan urged her horse along a bit faster. “Almost there,” she grinned. She pointed toward the top of a cliff as she swung herself off her horse. “Right up there.”

Cullen and Varric followed suit, staring at the rather nonexistent path of rocks. Cullen could make out a slight glow coming from the top, but he had no idea just how they would get up there. “I don’t see a path,” he murmured, glancing first at Varric, then Regan. “How are you planning to reach it?”

“I think I can make it this way,” Regan replied casually, pointing toward what might constitute a path if one were a mountain goat. She didn’t notice the men exchange worried glances as she climbed onto the first outcropping with ease. The various boulders and ledges were just close enough that she should be able to reach them if she jumped. The last ten feet or so, though, would be a near vertical climb. “When I get to the top, I’ll see if there’s an easier path for you two.” She knew Varric would never be able to make the climb; his arms and legs just weren’t long enough to reach the necessary hand-holds. Cullen was certainly strong enough to make it, if he wasn’t wearing armor. But he’d insisted on the protective gear, just in case. While it would come in handy if they ran into trouble, that much extra weight would make the ascent difficult.

“But what if you fall?” Cullen interrupted, watching her nervously. He wanted to pull her back to earth and shake some sense into her. They could all look for a path up, rather than run the risk of her hurting herself, couldn’t they? “Wouldn’t it make more sense for us all to –“.

“Give it up, Curly,” Varric sighed, reaching out to take the reins of Regan’s horse as she started leaping from rock to rock. He’d tried talking her out of things like this before; it never worked. “She’s got her mind already made up. Most we can do is try to catch her if she falls.” He wouldn’t admit it, but he was just as nervous as the Commander as they watched her make her way up. Every now and then, he could hear Cullen suck in a breath, anxiously expecting her to plummet back to earth every time it looked like she was going to come up short. Maybe bringing him wasn’t the best idea; if he had a heart attack while she climbed …

Regan was oblivious to the fearfulness of the two men below. She focused solely on finding the best places to land as she made her ascent. Sure, she could have stayed with the pair and found the path; she knew there was one, just couldn’t remember where. But this was more fun. And she so rarely got to actually do things like this. Back home, her mother had a conniption every time she even tried to do something a little dangerous. It had come as a total shock when she had been sent to the Conclave without a chaperone. And she was going to make the most of where she was. And it didn’t hurt that there was someone she wouldn’t mind impressing, either. 

Everything was going fine, too, until she reached that vertical climb. Starting up was no trouble, but once she got a few feet off the ground, the handhold she thought was sturdy, wasn’t. The tiny rock ridge crumbled just as she started to put her weight on it, causing her to dangle precariously by one hand. She wouldn’t admit it, but at that moment, she seriously started to reconsider her daredevil approach. “Look out below!” she called, hoping no one got hit by the rubble.

“Oh, shit,” Varric growled, dodging falling rock bits. He saw her hanging there and immediately felt helpless. He couldn’t magically cushion her impending fall. He couldn’t take the same path and try to grab her; there wasn’t time and he wasn’t that agile. He had no clue how to help.

Cullen wasn’t much better. “Blast it all!” He watched her hang there and could just tell her fingers were going to give out. She was going to fall, bash her head on the rocks, and end up broken at his feet, he just knew it. Why hadn’t she listened? What could he do? 

She couldn’t just hang there all day, and climbing back down wasn’t an option, nor was simply dropping down. It would take more skill than she possessed to land on the small ledge she’d left rather than just find a new place to grab. So, taking a breath, Regan swung herself just enough to reach a new outcropping. This stretched her reach further than intended, but at least she wasn’t falling. With a satisfied grunt and a quick call down to the men that she was OK, she continued her way up, a little more cautiously. With no further incidents, she finally reached the top, thankful that nothing but the strange item was present. Now, where was that path?

Finally allowing himself to breathe again, Cullen watched her pull herself over the edge; she’d made it to the top with no further near-falls. Now what? He looked at the dwarf and sighed. “So … what now?” he asked, looking about for … anything.

“I guess we start walking around, see if there’s a way up that doesn’t involve dangling by fingers.” Varric really didn’t want to try and follow her up that way; he wasn’t built for that kind of travel. “Told you she couldn’t stick to a trail.”

The pair had just started walking when they heard Regan call down. “There’s a path, maybe fifty paces from you! It looks like it should be easy enough for even the horses!” She sounded positively excited and Cullen couldn’t help but smile. It was so easy to forget that she wasn’t just the Herald sometimes; she was a real person who delighted in being unpredictable at times.

Eventually, they all reached the top and Regan pointed to what turned out to be two separate objects. The first was a strange-looking globe. The second was even stranger – a mounted skull with a gem embedded in one eye socket, and the gem was glowing. “The only thing we could see from the ground was this skull-thing, though it didn’t look like a skull from down there.” She started toward it before either man could stop her. “Anyone else hear that?” 

“Sounds almost like … voices?” Cullen frowned, dropping the horses’ reins and following after her as quickly as possible. Whatever it was, he wanted to be there to protect her, if he could. “Is it coming from that thing?”

Varric released his grip on his mount’s reins as well, readying Bianca, just in case … well, anything happened. “Maybe we shouldn’t get to close to the thing with ghostly voices coming out of it?” He remembered far too well how the red lyrium idol sung to Bartrand, and to himself. Inanimate objects making spooky noises were not high on his list of things to touch.

“I’ll be fine, Varric,” Regan replied, leaning down to peer through an open hole in the back of the skull. She trusted her instincts to tell her if something wasn’t safe, and so far, those instincts were silent. “This is … amazing,” she murmured. “It’s like I can see for miles. And there are … things … hidden out there. They’re glowing when I look through this thing, but I can’t see them if I’m not.”

Cullen reached for her, pulled her away from the contraption. “Yes, well, perhaps you can tell Solas what you found. Maybe he knows something of it, since it seems magical in origin?” He gently steered her away from the macabre thing, trying his best to ignore the urge to look through as well. The sound was almost like the way he would describe how lyrium called to him, almost.

“And this other thing?” Varric asked, gesturing toward the globe. “At least I don’t hear anything weird coming from it.” It had strange markings all over the surface, but looked safe enough. 

Regan peeked through what she decided was the eye piece and gasped. “It … it’s full of stars. Even in the daytime, it’s full of stars!” Her hands seemed to drift toward the contraption, and whenever her fingers made contact, certain stars would grow brighter. Every time she moved a finger along the orb’s surface, a line would appear between those brighter stars. “This is so weird.” She was so focused on what she was seeing in the orb that she forgot they were in an area that wasn’t necessarily safe.

Cullen couldn’t help himself. He should have been watching the path, or the horses, or something equally important. But instead, he found himself watching her. Her excitement in finding the strange objects, discovering at least a little of what they could do, made him smile. He watched as she gleefully motioned Varric over to see; this object was much less distasteful than the mounted skull. He wondered at the small pang of jealousy he felt until she motioned for him to join as well. But then, her face fell and there was pain and he was hitting the ground.

While Varric was looking through the object, making the final connections between stars, Regan turned to convince the Commander to come over as well. She was sure he’d appreciate the device, even if they didn’t quite know what it did. She smiled widely as he started toward them, but something in her gut suddenly screamed something was wrong. And then, she saw why. 

A trio of armed men had made their way up the hill. Two were armed with just swords, but one was carrying a shield and had used it to knock Cullen aside. Had the man actually been on guard, he would have been able to deflect or dodge the blow easily enough. But he’d been distracted, and that had made all the difference. 

“Cullen!” With panic in her voice, Regan leapt into action, immediately followed by Varric. The two rogues knew they were outnumbered and most likely outmatched, if one judged by strength in a fair fight. But she, at least, wasn’t about to fight fair. While Varric began firing a volley of arrows at the men, she disappeared from view. When she reappeared, the man who’d knocked Cullen over was down, groaning in agony as poison burned through his veins. She gave Cullen a quick wink and smile, then darted toward the men advancing on the dwarf, her blades glistening with a strange green liquid.

Cullen climbed to his feet, mentally berating himself for not paying attention. He’d been so entranced by her excitement that these former templars had gotten the jump on him. He was lucky they had only knocked him over. And then she’d come to his aid; like an angel, she’d appeared out of nowhere, bringing the assailant to his knees easily. Varric had been right. She paid little heed to her own safety when one of their own was in trouble. As it stood, she had somehow managed to get between the two sword-wielding men and Varric and was doing her best to keep their blades away from the dwarf. But she was having trouble, even with Bianca’s rapid-fire backup. Unsheathing his sword, he ran to help.

“Next time, we bring more bodyguards,” Varric grumbled, doing his best to keep the attackers back. This was one of those times he almost wished he’d taken Hawke up on her offers of training; Bianca was great at a distance, but up close the only thing she could do was club a man, and that risked damage to her. “Or, at the very least, set up warning traps.”

“That kind of planning is your job, isn’t it?” Regan laughed as she finally struck a killing blow against one of the two men. “I’m just here to close rifts.” She turned briefly to smile at Varric, and in that moment, the second swordsman brought his blade around to cut a gash in her right arm. Dropping to her knees in pain, she managed to bring her other blade around to block his next blow, but could do little else. Then, the man was on the ground, without a head, and someone was reaching for her arm.

“Let me see that,” Cullen whispered, gently pulling her wounded arm to him. The cut wasn’t deep; Varric had been able to keep them far enough back that only the tip of the blade caught her. But it still needed to be treated. “We have some poultices and bandages in the saddlebags,” he directed Varric as he worked to remove the layers of cloth around the woman’s arm. “This will probably sting a bit.” He did his best to ignore the nervous feeling in his stomach that being near her brought on.

“Cassandra’s going to kill me,” Regan sighed, fighting the blush she could feel tickling at her cheeks. This was no time to be embarrassed or nervous about an attractive man being this close. She’d just made a fool of herself, after all, letting someone get a clear shot at her like that. “She’ll give me that glare and say ‘I told you so’ and look so smug.” She looked over at Cullen and forced herself to sound calmer than she felt. “You won’t tell her, right? About this, I mean? I’ll tell her I fell and cut it on a rock or something if she asks.”

He found himself staring into her eyes as she spoke. He couldn’t help it. The official part of his brain wanted to say no, that Cassandra needed to know what had happened; it could affect how soon she could be sent back out to deal with rifts or demons or some such. That small part wanted to say no. But what came out of his mouth was exactly the opposite. “My lips are sealed, my lady. I will go along with whatever you tell Cassandra, and I’m sure Varric will as well.” He was certain he made the right choice when that smile lit up her face again.

Varric finally returned with the supplies, meaning Cullen had an excuse not speak for a while. He was afraid he’d start stuttering again. Instead, he focused on slathering the wound with the salve and wrapping it. He let Varric carry the conversation as he half-listened to the pair trying to figure out what the items were for, focusing on wrapping her injury so that it could be hidden as much as possible. When it was bound satisfactorily, he suggested they make their way back to Haven. It was getting late, and he was sure they would soon be missed.

The trip back to Haven was blissfully uneventful. Regan had to adjust her riding style slightly, thanks to the injury to her right arm, but it barely slowed them down. The trio tried to decide just how much to tell Cassandra and Solas about their discoveries, eventually settling on everything but the surprise attack at the end. Now that they knew both objects were safe, she was confident that she could convince at least the mage to examine it more closely. 

They reached the gates just after dusk, stabling the horses quickly; even just outside the main gates, it was best to get the animals sheltered before dark. With a tired smile, Regan left the two men to make her way back to the Chantry. She knew she should stop at the tavern for a meal, but she wasn’t sure she felt up to dealing with a crowd, let alone the chance that Cassandra could walk in. The less time she spent out where the Seeker could see her and possibly notice the bandage around her arm, the better. So, she just made her way to the makeshift room she’d been given, wondering again if sleeping outdoors might be preferable.


End file.
